TWO WAYS TO INSTALL A BARN SASH

Our 19th century barn needed sash windows. Our two experts had very different philosophies.

1 Frame it up BY RI CHARD ROMANSKI

This was the first improvement of any kind since the barn was built. We knew that, down the road, the owner might want to go beyond the windows – have an inside wall or board to hang woodworking or metalworking tools. So we said, okay, let’s frame the windows like a conventional house, with 2 x 4s. Then later, they can continue the framing to add insulation and walls. We just needed a reference point to start.

At an interior midpoint, we placed a laser-line level that projected along the existing interior face of the barn, and made a record with a chalk line. That was an important tool, because over that great distance – the 7,5 metre width of that wall – it would’ve been difficult with a smaller level to set a line.

This barn has gone through winters, it has gone through hurricanes and it has survived. It’s very charming and looks great, but what we found was that the horizontal beam above where the windows would go had sagged at the midpoint. That lowest point of the beam indicated to us where we would be able to have a headline: the top of a rough opening for each of these windows.

In theory, the windows would be equally spaced from the corners of the roof. So we transferred the dimensions for that along that laser line, and we were in good shape: we had a line at the top that represented the highest part of the window.

We were almost ready to cut the framing members for each window. Before we did that, however, we nailed down a long piece of 50 x 100 to the barn floor to form a sill. This would provide a consistent horizontal surface. And since it was new, clean lumber, it would allow us to mark the location of the window-framing members on it. Later on, the sill can be used to continue framing.

Now we had three things working in our favour. We had an accurate horizontal reference line, we had a consistent sill and we had consistently sized and accurately built barn sashes. In theory, those elements should be enough to make a neat installation.

But here’s where things get tricky. Yes, we had done everything we could to impose accuracy on our barn, but this job was still a long way from modern carpentry where you cut multiple pieces to the same length and assemble the parts.

This is a barn we’re talking about. It’s difficult enough to do this sort of remodelling on a house of that era. But a barn? The only way would be to measure and cut each window-frame piece individually. Then you try it in the space. If it fits, great. If the part doesn’t fit because it’s too tight, you cut it again. When it fits, you plumb or level the piece and nail or screw it in place.

Our next step was to take a 180 cm level and drop a vertical plumb line down from the horizontal reference to mark the location of the vertical framing. We cut and fitted the vertical members of the rough opening; then we cut the horizontal members to fit between them. Finally, we cut three cripple studs to fit below the lowest horizontal member of the frame. It wasn’t standard load-bearing framing technique, but we did arrive at a neat, square, and plumb frame.

Once that frame was set in place, we carefully took out a 15 to 20 cm long 12,5 mm twist drill, and placed it against the framing members on their inside corners where the opening would go. We then employed a

Sawzall and that little hole on the upperleft-hand side was our lead. If you hold it properly – not wiggling it back and forth like a handsaw – and keep that blade along the edge of that 50 x 100, gravity’s going to help and you’ll be all the way down before you know it. Then we went to the right-hand side and did the same thing; then a flush cut again across the bottom; and on the ladder, very carefully, the same thing at the top.

Then we cleaned up the corners, and now you can poke your head out. It’s taken 170 years, but somebody’s connected the outside world to the inside.

This next part was a two-person operation. As soon as I got to the top of that ladder outside, I had the window rest on that nice level sill. Then I just pushed and it fitted right in, no more than about a 5-mm gap in that opening. And then it was a matter of Roy holding the inside of the window as I applied screws through the casing, that 25 mm old siding and finally into those vertical framing members.

Go back inside, take the lighting down, open it up, call it a day. We’re done.

2 Stick it in BY ROY BERENDSOHN

When we came in, there was all kinds of lumber and scrap wood; back in the day, someone had nailed up some fruit and vegetable crates, plus sheet metal, and covered the wall with tar paper. Every kind of nail you could imagine was in there, right on top of each other. Tearing that stuff out so that we could get at the barn siding? It was miserable.

There was no plumb line, level surface or square corner in that barn. Once a structure becomes that compromised, once the discrepancies are as large as what we found here, we had to establish a true horizontal reference. We took a laser level and shot a beam along a wall to give us a datum, which is good whether you install 50 x 100 framing around the window or not.

My point was, we should involve the barn as little as possible. At this stage, all we want is light and air provided by the windows, and it has to look aesthetically neat. Some day, there’s going to be insulation and other things going on inside the barn. But we’re still a long way from that point. Just installing the barn sash through the siding doesn’t affect what you’re going to do later on; that’s neutral.

With a classically framed barn like this, you have gigantic posts and these beams. Unless you cut into them – which we did not do – you’re not interrupting the load path, you’re just punching a hole. The framing doesn’t do anything for you, really, and it becomes so labour-intensive to do a neat job in this out-of-control structure that you’re better off simply cutting a hole in the barn siding, and just attaching the window, which is what I ended up doing on the two windows I installed. It simplifies matters: you mark a level line, that’s your datum and you just make a rectangular hole.

Even when you build a modern house, you can be only so precise with construction lumber. So you make what they call a “rough opening”, comfortably larger than the door or window you’re going to insert in it, because no matter how careful you are, there’s going to be some discrepancy. So Richard’s laser line on the back wall of the barn was the datum from which everything was referenced. It’s very direct. There’s no maths involved. Got a level line? That’s all you need.

To put my first window in, I had to extend the laser line through a partition that stuck out from the wall and blocked the beam. I did this with a string line. First, I drilled a little hole in the partition. Then I tacked a nail next to it in the siding and stretched the line through the hole and over to where my window would go. I made a level line from that, marked two side lines and the bottom of what would be the rough opening. Then we used that rectangle to saw through the siding. Using a circular saw and a Super Sawzall, you can make a clean, precise hole, and then the barn sash just fits in.

You simply insert the window into its hole and the window’s casing forms a flange that rests against the siding. With one guy holding the window from the outside, I levelled the window and made it plumb from the inside using cedar shingles as shims. That’s the challenge: to get this square or rectangular thing into this hole and have it operate properly. Then the guy on the outside drives trim-head screws through the casing into the barn siding.

That one was so fast, it only took an hour to install. Richard’s framed three were an all-day affair, on and off, for three guys. They’re all nicely done, certainly I have no regrets, but both methods are viable. You don’t have to be a master craftsman to get this right.

It’s a nice old barn. I’m kind of blasé about its structural qualities, but it’s stood all this time with no input from Roy Berendsohn and I don’t expect that will change, thank you very much. PM

The simplest method of installing a barn sash (near left) is to screw it to the barn’s siding. If that’s not possible, as when the siding itself is weak and weathered, build a frame for the window out of 50 x 100 lumber (far left). In both cases, the...

STICK IT IN.